The Glory of Daylight Savings and April Fools
Today's run: Medium-Long Run of 12 miles at 8:03 pace. (Too fast.)
I cannot tell you how glad I am that tonight we set the clocks forward and start having more daylight in the latter part of the day. It just makes my world happier.
Plus, this means I can run later in the day without the complications of darkness: wearing reflective gear, being more concerned about routes, etc.
Since this is April Fool's, I thought I'd also let you in on a little insanity for the day: I played a trick on my wife today. The neat thing about April 1 showing up the day before Daylight Savings time begins is that it opens the door to the following trick. Last night, she went to bed a bit before I did, and I went around and set all the clocks forward in the house ...and in her car ...and her watches. I even faked oversleeping for my morning running group to keep the charade up. She wound up meeting her mother an hour earlier than planned, and spent a half-our in disbelief. April Fool's!
Today's run was a K-Stars' Golden Gate Park special. I have come to really love running in the park, and the K-Stars are a great group of people to run with. Here's a diagram of today's route, except we extended it a mile past Noriega (to Sloat) to make it a bit over 12.
Before each Saturday run, we circle up and go around and say what run and pace we are going. I was surprised to be the first to announce a longer run, and honored to find four more K-Stars agree to go that distance as well. Stalwart K-Stars Galen, Chris and Meredith even tried to keep their pace moderate to run with me. Thanks!
However, we still went faster than I should be going. I spent some time discussing this with Mike while we brunched at Crepes on Cole (the K-Star post-run tradition). The traditional wisdom is that one should do longer runs at a slower pace, much slower than goal. If this were the recommended 15% slower than goal, then the goal pace for me would be 6:51 (a sub 3-hour marathon). If only 10% slower (still a bit fast), then goal pace would be 7:15 (a 3:09:00 marathon). Neither of these seem like realistic goals for a first marathon. Instead, we can safely conclude that I need to slow it down.
That's where the heart rate monitor is supposed to help. Sure enough, it was beeping the whole run through, but I just ignored it so I could stay with the group. I spent 92% of the run outside of the range the monitor was trying to keep me in, averaging 170 bpm for the run instead of the recommended 155 or so.
More about the heart rate monitor tomorrow, with the first Recovery run.
I cannot tell you how glad I am that tonight we set the clocks forward and start having more daylight in the latter part of the day. It just makes my world happier.
Plus, this means I can run later in the day without the complications of darkness: wearing reflective gear, being more concerned about routes, etc.
Since this is April Fool's, I thought I'd also let you in on a little insanity for the day: I played a trick on my wife today. The neat thing about April 1 showing up the day before Daylight Savings time begins is that it opens the door to the following trick. Last night, she went to bed a bit before I did, and I went around and set all the clocks forward in the house ...and in her car ...and her watches. I even faked oversleeping for my morning running group to keep the charade up. She wound up meeting her mother an hour earlier than planned, and spent a half-our in disbelief. April Fool's!
Today's run was a K-Stars' Golden Gate Park special. I have come to really love running in the park, and the K-Stars are a great group of people to run with. Here's a diagram of today's route, except we extended it a mile past Noriega (to Sloat) to make it a bit over 12.
Before each Saturday run, we circle up and go around and say what run and pace we are going. I was surprised to be the first to announce a longer run, and honored to find four more K-Stars agree to go that distance as well. Stalwart K-Stars Galen, Chris and Meredith even tried to keep their pace moderate to run with me. Thanks!
However, we still went faster than I should be going. I spent some time discussing this with Mike while we brunched at Crepes on Cole (the K-Star post-run tradition). The traditional wisdom is that one should do longer runs at a slower pace, much slower than goal. If this were the recommended 15% slower than goal, then the goal pace for me would be 6:51 (a sub 3-hour marathon). If only 10% slower (still a bit fast), then goal pace would be 7:15 (a 3:09:00 marathon). Neither of these seem like realistic goals for a first marathon. Instead, we can safely conclude that I need to slow it down.
That's where the heart rate monitor is supposed to help. Sure enough, it was beeping the whole run through, but I just ignored it so I could stay with the group. I spent 92% of the run outside of the range the monitor was trying to keep me in, averaging 170 bpm for the run instead of the recommended 155 or so.
More about the heart rate monitor tomorrow, with the first Recovery run.
posted by Brent at
4:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home